New Materials, New Problems
I always think the world is moving too fast. One day we’re comfortable with plastic and steel, and the next someone says, “Hey, we found this new material that’s going to change everything!” Then boom things around us are suddenly lighter, stronger, or weirder.
Take memory metal, a metal that can spring back to its original shape after being bent. When I first saw it on YouTube, I was shocked, and then I thought, “If only my bones had this feature, I wouldn’t have to worry about spraining my ankles playing soccer.” But what really got me was, how did people discover this in the first place? Did they accidentally drop a fork in the fire, and then it suddenly snapped back into shape?
Then there’s translucent wood, a transparent material that’s supposedly stronger than glass. I love the idea especially if my windows could look like solid wood from the outside, but still be able to see through like a regular window. But then I thought, what if we used this in our bathroom? We don’t want any unexpected surprises, do we?
One that really blew my mind was superhydrophobic materials, which allow water to glide over them without sticking to them at all. I saw a demo where someone poured water on a pair of shoes made of this material, and the water bounced off like magic. I immediately imagined owning a pair of pants made of this material so that when I accidentally spill my coffee, I can just watch it roll to the floor without leaving a stain. The problem is, if everything was made of this material, we’d probably spend a lot more time chasing after things that were sliding around.
What really got me was self-healing concrete, a cement that can repair its own cracks. I wondered: what if this technology were applied to human relationships? Maybe after a fight, a relationship could “repair” itself without having to go through the awkward silence in the family WhatsApp group.
But one thing I’ve learned from all these new materials is that no matter how advanced they get, humans always find a way to be clumsy. We have self-repairing phone screens, but people still drop them from the second floor in the hope of “testing the technology.” We have waterproof suits, but surely someone thought to try them out in a rainstorm just to see if they worked.
So, while technology continues to advance, one thing remains the same: humans are still humans.
[Image generated with the help of Meta AI!]
